A dramatic and absorbing tale of a historic storm.
Based on real events, this debut illustrated children’s book tells the story of how a boy, his family, and his dog survive the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926.
Harry Berg is almost 4 years old when his family relocates from Detroit to Miami in search of new opportunities, like many white Northerners of the time. For Harry and his little brother, Russ, Miami is excitingly different from up north, with its palm trees, tropical flowers, and exotic-sounding neighborhoods. The Bergs settle in, adopt a stray puppy they name Patches, and move first into a duplex and then to a small house that, though covered in tar paper, actually contains an indoor toilet. Life is good—and then a huge storm hits Miami on Sept. 18, 1926. In their frail house, the family prays to stay alive. After passing safely through the eye of the hurricane, the group finds the next day even more terrifying. Harry, clutching Patches tight, manages to find safety with neighbors in their Model T; everyone survives. Though for years afterward the boy has nightmares, they eventually fade. Looking back in 2006, Harry realizes the hurricane taught him the importance of protecting those you love and to “Fear Nothing” because protective forces watch over everyone. An afterword, epilogue, and family photographs round out the story, along with simple but attractive monochrome images by debut illustrator Petersmark; the full-color cover is somewhat misleading in showing a cheerful Harry mid-hurricane. In his book, author Gordon Berg draws on family history and hurricane survivors’ accounts. The terrifying event comes alive, not just its destructiveness, but also small details. Hiding under a table, Harry notices “the faded alphabet I had scrawled underneath when I was in first grade. If I could rearrange the letters now, they would spell, ‘HELP US.’ ” Adding to the drama, the hurricane comments on the action like a psychopathic killer: “I blew her house apart a few hours ago. She is now tying herself to a tree….What is that she’s holding? A baby…wrapped in a blanket. My my.” Though harrowing, the story effectively emphasizes faith and mutual support.
A dramatic and absorbing tale of a historic storm.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-943995-96-7
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Mission Point Press
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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